2019: Veterans Day and SEAL Museum Ft Pierce FL

11 November 2019 - Veteran's Day
No boat travel.

We stayed on the boat and around Don's house today. I had various plans to take care of related to upcoming travel. Clark decided to take today to reinstall the fuel-level sensors. He removed them part way along our trip south as they were leaking. He decided he must have over-tightened them while trying to stop the leak, and they stopped working - showing a constant 100% full on the gauge.

He ordered new ones and they were waiting for us here in Vero Beach when we arrived. Before he could complete the job, of course, we had to go to a couple of stores for tools and supplies. Otherwise, it was a sort of "do nothing" kind of day.

Sunset in Vero Beach on Veteran's Day

12 November 2019
No boat travel.

Although we have driven past it several times on prior visits to the area, Clark and I have never visited the UDT-SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce and decided it would be a nice outing for us and our friends. Don drove us all in his car, and we made a day of it. Seniors over 65 get a reduced rate of $3 off admission. Clark and I do not yet qualify - soon though! Maybe we should have waited until the spring to visit.

Entrance

Mural on side of building

"Medal of Honor" Statue at entrance
"No Man Left Behind"

The museum had several rooms of displays set up by the war era depicted. The UDT, Underwater Demolition Team, was formed during World War II due to the prevalence of mines in the waters. One story told at the museum was by a serviceman who was given a set of bolt cutters as his only weapon and told to free dive into the water to cut cables holding mines in place. The Navy needed the  mines out of the way, so they could get closer to shore to offload troops.

The need for trained servicemen to take on extraordinary operations on land as well as sea came into being during the Korean War and beyond. The term SEAL, SEa Air Land, originated from how the original teams might arrive on the scene and later developed into how the teams might be deployed, i.e. anywhere they were needed.

Inside displays included, for example, ...

Land Vehicles

Aircraft

Weaponry 

Camouflage 

Outside displays included ...

Ships of all sorts

SEAL Delivery Craft

Placards describing the displays
(Special Operations Craft description)

Special Operations Craft
(Stairs added for museum guests to climb aboard this display)

Seating for 16 SEALs on Special Operations Craft

Helm of Special Operations Craft seats 5 crew

SEALs were trained in the procedures to secure returning Apollo space capsules with flotation rings and then recover the astronauts from within the capsules.

Apollo Space Capsule Training Device

All artifacts displayed at the museum were actually used in training or missions with the exception of one boat on display used to "cast and recover" SEALs. A sign said they searched for years for an actual craft and finally resorted to building a replica for the museum.

To protect SEALs under enemy fire while they were "cast" into the water, a rubber dinghy sat beside the landing craft. SEALs quickly moved from one craft to the other and then dropped into the water.

Several vehicles sat on display including the ones shown below used in desert situations. The smaller vehicle below can be deployed and recovered by helicopters. With a fuel bladder, it can travel up to 1000 miles.

During World War II, the training facility for UDTs was established in Ft. Pierce, Florida. The training obstacles shown below were constructed on the beaches of Ft. Pierce between 1943 and 1945. They were finally removed and became museum property in 1991.

Beach obstacles, designed to prevent invasions, had to be
dealt with by the UDT teams during WWII.

An obstacle course resides on the property to challenge those interested to see how they compare to SEALs. To tackle the course, however, one has to sign a waiver so the museum is not responsible for injuries. Clark was interested in taking the challenge. He thought the rope challenge looked particularly interesting. Sadly for him, we ran out of time. Plus, he was not dressed in comfy, play clothes.

Note: I got my obstacle course definitions from a web site.

Slide for Life
(a tower like object you must hoist yourself up on and climb it,
 then you must slide down a rope to the bottom)

Warning signs everywhere - at your own risk

Burma Bridge

Monkey Bars and Balance Logs

In videos in the museum we saw dogs trained to be SEALs. They showed one named Barry walking on balance logs to achieve his goal. It looked ridiculously difficult for the dog, the size of a small German Shepard, to walk across a log bridge.

Belly Crawl

Low Belly Over

Hooyah Logs
(a group of logs tied together that you walk over with your hands on top of your head)

High Wall / Low Wall

Handwalk

Clark did successfully complete the one indoor challenge we saw. SEALs are trained to hold their breath for up to 4 minutes to be able to complete underwater missions. In this challenge, Clark held his breath (not under water) while tying three different knots - a square knot, a bowline, and something similar to a clove hitch. He had all three tied in 29 seconds and said he wasn't even trying! He regularly holds his breath while working under our boat for up to 40 seconds at a time - longer than that and I start to get nervous.

After the visit to the SEAL Museum, we enjoyed a lovely lunch at the Manatee Island Bar & Grill restaurant in Fort Pierce. On the way back to Don's house and our boat, we then made a stop at Marine Connection Liquidators - a fascinating marine supply store the size of a huge warehouse. I don't normally find anything that I particularly need there, but I love roaming the aisles to see what they have in stock.

We got back to Don's house in time for docktails. When it got too buggy on the patio, we called it a night. Given we had lunch out, I emptied the refrigerator of leftovers and called it pot luck dinner.


13 November 2019
Depart: Vero Beach Private Dock 9:10
Arrive: Vero Beach City Marina - Pump Out 9:25
Depart: Vero Beach City Marina - Pump Out 9:40
Arrive: Vero Beach Private Dock 10:05
Distance: Less than 2 nm

Clark planned for us to take the boat over to the Vero Beach City Marina today for a pump out and to put a bit of water under the keel to clean it off a bit. We knew the weather would deteriorate as the day progressed, so we planned to go early to avoid heavy rain.

When we woke at 7:00 a.m., we could hear the wind howling outside and feel it pushing "Sunset Delight" around in the slip. I wondered if Clark would change his mind about going for a pump out. I should not have bothered wondering -- of course we were going for a pump out; never mind the 20 knot gusts of wind!

Since we would be returning to the slip, we decided to leave some lines behind so we would know how we had the boat tied previously. We added temporary lines to the dock that I could pull in quickly from within the boat. Once we had the hard-to-reach lines off and the quick-release lines set, we were ready to go when Clark gave the word.

Leaving turned out to be simple. Then all I had to worry about was coming back!  We had someone to help us tie up at the city marina dock for the pump out. In just under 15 minutes we were done and on our way back to Don's dock.

Clark prefers to back into slips whenever possible. It is particularly interesting when we have a wind or current pushing us downstream as he backs into a slip. He cannot see the dock as he backs up, so as he reverses into the slip, I have to be his eyes and tell him when he is lined up. I watch as he backs up, tell him when he is aligned, and then run to midships to grab my breast line.

It can be stressful in a high-wind or high-current situation. Today, I used temporary lines to get ourselves tied to the dock any which way I could and then connected the long-term lines afterwards. It worked well. Don came out to give us some assistance coming in, so that helped as well.

After the excitement of the pump-out run, the rest of the day was spent on chores. I did some baking and some laundry. I got "trapped" for an hour or so up at the house retrieving the laundry. I went up to collect the laundry from the dryer when it was sunny. By the short time later, when I walked out the door, it was pouring buckets. I quickly took my clean and dry laundry back inside. Then proceeded to talk with Don for ages.

I called Clark and asked him to take my cake out of the oven when the timer went off. I was concerned he might forget or not hear the timer, but I figured, if not, he would eventually smell it burning. He remembered!

It rained off and on the remainder of the day, so we stayed on board and did boat things like blog updates, etc.